1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns, among other aspects, a video conferencing system connecting a courtroom with a jail. The system enables private communication between an attorney and his incarcerated client during trial such that the private communication is maintained in confidence and, therefore, does not lose its protected status under the legal doctrine of the attorney-client privilege.
2. Description of the Related Art
The concept of video conferencing is not a new one. Numerous video conferencing systems are known to those skilled in the art, including the systems described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,710,917, 4,716,585, 4,847,829, 5,014,267, and 5,903,302, for example, the contents of each of which are incorporated herein by reference.
In recent years, to capitalizes on the improved safety and convenience offered by video conferencing systems, among other advantages, courts have begun to rely on video conferencing systems that facilitate communication between courthouses and jails. In particular, within the last decade, courts have relied increasingly on video conferencing systems for inmate arraignment proceedings. Arraignment proceedings typically involve the judge, a court reporter, a clerk and the inmate and are often conducted outside of the presence of attorneys. At an arraignment hearing, the judge reads the charges being brought against the defendant, who also may be referred to as the inmate, the incarcerated, or the criminal.
Video conferencing has become a generally acceptable vehicle through which an arraignment hearing may be conducted because video arraignment offers a number of advantages over the traditional system. Before the advent of video arraignment, the inmate had to be transported from the prison to the courthouse so that the charges could be read to the inmate in person. The cost of transporting inmates from the prison to the courthouse and back is not insignificant. Not only is there a cost associated with the actual transportation itself, but the cost associated with the personnel required to provide adequate security is substantial.
If the inmate does not have to be transported from the prison, the cost to the federal, state, or local government entity may be significantly reduced because transportation and security costs associated with the arraignment hearing may be eliminated. In addition, the overall security at the courthouse may be increased, primarily due to the elimination of the presence of the inmate at the courthouse. In addition, in some circumstances, especially where the case is a particularly high-profile one, the threat of protest or terrorist activity against the courthouse may be reduced because the inmate remains in the jail and does not create a focal point of such activity while in the courthouse.
A more recent trend in the last ten years, which also capitalizes on the advantages offered by video conferencing, has been the development and implementation of video conferencing facilities to permit prison inmates to visit with family members and friends. Such visitation systems include (1) a visitor center, remotely located from the prison, connected to (2) an inmate center, located within the prison. The visitor center and the prison are connected to one another via the video conference system so that prisoners and visitors may engage in face-to-face discussions. In lieu of a personal visit, video conferencing offers a more personal connection between prisoners and visitors than does a telephone communication.
The advantages of a video conference system in a prison setting are many-fold. Specifically, because the visitor's center may be located remotely from the prison, visitors are not required to travel to the prison to speak with inmates. As a result, convenience to the visitor is greatly enhanced. To further facilitate visitation, prisons may set up visitor centers in urban locations, closer to the homes of potential visitors, which makes inmate visitation even more convenient.
In addition, removing the visitor's center from the prison greatly improves security at prisons for several reasons. First, visitors often bring gifts to prisoners, which they present to the inmates during the visitation. In some instances, the visitors bring items that have been classified as “contraband” because the items may be fashioned into a weapon. Second, the safety of the visitor is increased because the visitor does not need to enter the prison environment.
Most recently, especially since the tragedy of Sep. 11th, 2001, security issues at government buildings, including courthouses, has become an increasingly important concern. In particular, courts have begun to look at additional ways in which security may be enhanced and risk may be reduced. One avenue explored most recently by courts (i.e., more recently than the consideration of inmate visitation using video conferencing) has been the use of video conferencing to assist in conducting criminal trials. With such systems, inmates are kept in the jail and participate in their trials via video conferencing.
One drawback to the use of video conferencing has been a difficulty encountered when the defense attorney finds it necessary to confer with the inmate (the defense attorney's client) to discuss a particular issue during the course of the trial. In courts where video conferencing is employed, to facilitate a private conference between an attorney and an inmate, it has been necessary to establish a separate telephone connection between the defense attorney and the inmate in the prison. Typically, this has been accomplished by taking a recess during the trial and permitting the attorney to establish a telephone link to the inmate.
While effective, establishing a telephone link during trial delays the progress of the trial for several reasons. In most instances, establishing a telephone link poses logistic difficulties. Most courts do not have a telephone available in the courtroom where the trial is conducted. (Moreover, where phones are provided, they often are located at the defense counsel's table and, therefore, are not positioned such that the communications cannot be overheard by others present in the courtroom, thereby potentially destroying the attorney-client privilege.) As a result, if an attorney-client communication is needed, the defense attorney is required to leave the courtroom and call the prison from a private room outside of the courtroom.
At the prison, the difficulties are particularly acute because video conferencing facilities typically do not include a separate phone. As a result, the prisoner must be escorted to a private room within the prison and the defense attorney's call must be routed to that private room. When the call ends, the attorney returns to the courtroom and the trial participants await the return of the inmate to the video conferencing room. The inmate's return may be delayed for several reasons, including any delays associated with escorting the inmate from the private telephone room back to the video conference facility.
It should be noted that the general concept of a courtroom/jail video conference system is not new. Several prior art courtroom video conferencing systems are discussed below.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,965,819 (“the '819 patent”) describes a video conferencing system for courtroom and other applications. In particular, the '819 patent describes a system that permits a person, at a remote location, to communicate interactively with a group of users at a local station, such as a group conducting a legal proceeding in a courtroom. One purported advantage of the system provides a station where the conferees may maintain eye contact with the screen and camera simultaneously. The system also includes a recording device to create a permanent audio-visual record of the proceeding.
The basic set-up of the video conferencing system described by the '819 patent is shown in FIGS. 1 and 2. The system accommodates four conferees, the judge 1, the prosecutor 2, the defense attorney 3, and the witness 4 at the courtroom location. The defendant 5, who is also a participant, is connected as shown in FIG. 2. In addition, the system includes a control module operated by a technician 6, who is also shown in FIG. 2.
As noted at column 4, lines 25–28, the defense attorney 3 may communicate privately with the defendant over a telephone link comprising a local telephone 50, remote telephone 52, and telephone line 51. The local telephone line 51 does not appear to travel through the same communications link as the remainder of the video conference communication. This is supported by the description at col. 5, lines 1–19.
The defendant 5 may communicate directly with the defense attorney 3 using the telephone 52. The telephone line 51 may be secured by providing voice scrambling circuitry with signal descrambling circuitry in each of the phones 50, 52. In one preferred embodiment, the system computer 68 may receive a “private line” signal when the telephones 50, 52 are in use. When the “private line” signal is received by the computer 68, recording of the conference is disabled.
While the system described in the '819 patent does provide one means permitting a private attorney-client communication between the defense attorney and the inmate, there are several disadvantages to the system described. First, the arrangement is akin to the set-up discussed above where a separate telephone connection must be established between the courtroom and the jail. Second, the telephone 50 at the defense attorney's table is not in a private location. As a result, aspects of the conversation potentially may be overheard by others in the courtroom, thereby defeating the attorney-client privilege. Third, telephone communications do not provide the defense attorney and the inmate to communicate non-verbally, which may impede the parties' ability to effectively discuss a particular point of law or factual issue.
Another prior art video conferencing system designed for courtroom use is described in U.S. Published patent application No. 2003/0174826 (“the '826 application”), which discusses an inmate video visitation system. As described in paragraph [0014], the prison visitation system has a visitation site with a first station used by a conference coordinator and a plurality of visitation stations. The prison site also includes a number of visitation stations. The stations are connected together at hubs and the hubs are interconnected.
The video conferencing architecture 200 includes a prisoner visitation system 300 with a central site 301, court 310, office 311, visiting center 312, and two jails 313, 314. A jail management system 302 may be included with a database 304 that assists with management of the prisoner visitation system 300. The court 310 portion of the system 300 includes conference participant stations for a judge 315, prosecutor 316, defense attorney 317, and witness 318. Two or more of the participants may engage in a separate conversation using the described system.
The system described by the '826 application includes no provision for a separate, private communication between a defense attorney and the inmate. As a result, if an attorney-client communication must be established, the participants must establish a separate telephone link for that communication. The disadvantages of establishing such a system have been discussed above.
As previously mentioned, a difficulty with prior art trial video conference systems is the inability to provide a private communications link to the inmate in a manner that facilitates the privileged, attorney-client communication in a video conference mode.
While standard (non-trial) video conferencing systems known in the prior art do provide the ability to establish a private communication between a subgroup of participants to the main conference, these prior art video conferencing systems do not provide a solution to the problems identified above.
Several prior art video conferencing systems are known to include at least one mode of operation where two or more parties to the video conference call may confer separate and apart from the remaining participants in the conference call. There are two purposes for which a separate conference may be initiated. First, one participant in the conference call may wish to add a new participant. That person may call the new participant and speak with the new participant in privacy before adding the new participant to the existing conference call. Second, two or more participants in an established conference call may wish to discuss a particular privately in a separate conference call and, after the private conversation, rejoin the ongoing conference call with all of the participants.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,625,407 (“the '407 patent”) describes a video conferencing system including functionality that addresses the first of the two purposes listed above. The '407 patent describes a multimedia conferencing system where a multimedia communication link 118, 120, 122 is established between first and second endpoints 104, 106 and a multimedia server 102 (or “MMS 102”). The system may operate in a “Privacy Mode” for a portion of its operation, which is described at col. 9, lines 44–55. In this mode, the endpoint device 104 informs the MMS 102 of the desire to add a third party. The MMS 102 then establishes a connection 122/121 to the endpoint 165 of the third party. Next, the MMS 102 establishes a private conversation between the endpoint device 104 and the third party endpoint device 165. Subsequently, the third party endpoint 165 may be added to the conference between the endpoint devices 104, 106. This is accomplished through the multimedia signal routing device 129.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,963,246 (“the '246 patent”) describes a multi-point video conference system that provides a functionality consistent with the second of the two purposes listed above. In particular, the system described in the '246 patent facilitates a privacy communication between specific points in a multi-point conference. One object of the patent is to provide a multi-point video conference system where the privacy communication can be realized by simply modifying multi-point video conference terminals. The basic arrangement of one embodiment of the system is illustrated in FIG. 5.
As shown in FIG. 5, a command input device 11 outputs a signal 20S to the multiplexing unit 10 indicating that the user wishes to engage in a privacy communication. The signal 20S also includes information identifying one other terminal with which the privacy communication is desired. The multiplexing unit 10 receives the compressed video signal from the image CODEC 16 as an image channel, the compressed audio signal from the voice CODEC 17 as a voice channel and the privacy communication control signal 20S as a data channel. If any terminal is not part of the privacy communication, the audio and video outputs to that terminal are muted (or disabled).
One example of the operation of the system described begins at the top of column 14 of the '246 patent. When the user at terminal 1a requests a privacy communication with the user of terminal 1b, the user 1a inputs a command signal in the command input device 11. The signal 20S includes an identifier for the terminal 1b, which is the recipient of the privacy communication. The information of the privacy communication and the privacy control signal 20S are sent to all of the users at terminals 1a–1d. However, because the privacy signal 20S controls the operation of the terminals 1a–1d, only those terminals selected to participate in the conversation are permitted to view and hear the substance of the privacy communication. All others are excluded.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 6,020,916 (“the '916 patent”) describes a video conferencing system permitting two or more users to initiate a private conference. The user of the video phone 13 may mute or suppress the outgoing audio/video to one or more of the other videophones.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,185,285 (“the '285 patent”) also describes a teleconferencing system permitting two or more parties to have a private conversation.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,343,314 (“the '314 patent”) describes a PC-based video conferencing system that permits two or more parties in the conference call to establish a private conference.
One aspect of prior art video conferencing systems lies in the construction of such systems to establish a multipoint conference call between participants. So designed, these systems overlook a point-to-point connection such as the type required for video conferencing between a courtroom and a jail. Accordingly, prior art video conferencing systems are not well suited to a courtroom-jail connection. In addition, because these systems rely on a multipoint connection, they are not well suited to be adapted for use in a point-to-point connection, such as the type required to be established when a courtroom and jail are to be communicatively connected with one another during a trial proceeding.
What should be apparent from the discussion of these prior art video conferencing systems is the fact that they are not readily applicable to the courtroom trial setting. These systems rely on the video phones at the various endpoints of the conference call to effectuate the private communication. In a courtroom setting, the input devices for the defense attorney are the microphone and camera set up at the defense attorney's table. Accordingly, it is virtually impossible for the defense attorney to communicate privately with the inmate unless all of the other participants in the trial (including the judge, prosecuting attorney, bailiff, court reporter, jurors, and members of the public in the gallery) were all to leave the courtroom during the private, attorney-client discussion.
Also, as discussed the multipoint architecture of prior art video conferencing systems is not well suited for use in a trial. As should be appreciated by those skilled in the art, the multipoint architecture is not easily adapted to a point-to-point video conference architecture of the type needed for video trial proceedings.
Therefore, one problem not addressed by the prior art remains the inability of existing video conferencing systems to provide a secure audio-visual communications link between the courtroom and the jail so that the defense attorney and the inmate may have a face-to-face discussion in a time-effective manner so that trial is not unnecessarily delayed.
Another problem not addressed by the prior art is the inability of prior art systems to use the communications line established between the courtroom and the prison for both the trial proceedings and the private, attorney-client discussion.
These problems, among others, cry out for a solution.